Video Memory and GPU Acceleration in Windows® 7

Are you curious to know about video memory, GPU acceleration and virtual memory considerations in Windows 7 system?

Windows 7 is the latest operating system available in the market today. This operating system is the successor to Windows Vista. The computer performance can be greatly increased by using Windows 7 operating system. There are certain system requirements for Windows 7. The processor needed is 1 gigahertz (GHz) or a faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor. In the case of memory, it will need 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit). The hard disk space required is 16 GB for 32-bit and 20 GB for 64-bit. The system should have DirectX 9 graphics device which is having WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. Video memory is an important component of any computer and is used to support graphics and videos.

Video memory in Windows 7

Video memory is also a type of RAM which stores all the information regarding the video card. The image will be represented in bitmap in the frame buffer, which is an area found in the video memory. Windows 7 uses the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM). This is where you can find graphics memory is virtualized. It is seen that WDDM is not being limited to the amount by amount which is present in physical memory. Desktop Window Manager (DWM) is also used in Windows 7. There are applications which are present to DWM buffer. DWM will compose the buffers together in order to create the image that you need to see on your screen.

GPU acceleration

A GPU or graphics processing unit is present in the video card or in motherboard. The accelerated GPU will be more effective than general purpose CPUs. In Windows 7, it is seen that some of the limited GPU acceleration for GDI was added in order to enable some video memory optimizations. WPF, Direct3D and Direct2D are also GPU accelerated. The Desktop Window Manager will be able to use GPU acceleration, so apps in Windows 7 can be benefited automatically.

Virtual memory considerations

Different processes store and then retrieve information through addresses. Processes have got virtual addresses and are longer than physical address and are not used as shortcut. There is a restriction for a process to use virtual address, so that they will not interfere with memory of other processes. It is seen that with virtual addresses, the operating system will be able to use both physical memory and also the hard disk space to hold the information. Thus, resource sharing becomes possible.

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